How to Remove Metadata From Multiple Photos at Once

To remove metadata from many photos at once, you need a tool that works on a selection or a folder rather than one file at a time. Windows has one built in with real limits, iPhone can drop location for a batch you share, ExifTool cleans whole folders from the command line, and a browser folder drop does the full job, including renaming, without installing anything. Here is what each method actually removes, step by step.

What "metadata" means for a batch of photos

A photo file carries more than the picture. EXIF records the camera, lens, serial number, settings and time. GPS fields record where it was taken. XMP and IPTC hold captions, credits and editing history. AI generators add their own layer: C2PA Content Credentials, IPTC tags that mark a file as AI-made, and in Stable Diffusion and ComfyUI files the full prompt and workflow. The methods below differ mainly in how many of these layers they touch, so check the comparison before you pick one.

Windows: Remove Properties for several files

File Explorer has a built-in remover that accepts more than one file. Microsoft's instructions start with "Select one or more files" (Microsoft TechNet):

• Select the photos in File Explorer.
• Right-click and choose Properties, then open the Details tab.
• Click Remove Properties and Personal Information.
• Keep the default to get a cleaned copy of each file with "Copy" added to the name, or choose to remove ticked properties from the originals.

Know the limits. Microsoft says the copy option removes the properties it can change "based on the file type," and that the feature does nothing to the file's contents. Some fields can't be removed at all; users on Microsoft's Q&A forum report Owner and Computer staying put. It is fine for camera details on a handful of JPEGs. It is not a dependable way to clear PNG text chunks, XMP or C2PA Content Credentials, and it does not reach into subfolders.

Rename the batch on Windows

Sort the folder the way you want the numbers to run, select the files, press F2, type a name and press Enter. Windows names them Name (1), Name (2) and so on, with the number in parentheses (Microsoft Q&A). There is no setting to change that format.

iPhone: drop location from a set of photos you share

Apple documents this for several photos at a time (Apple Support): open Photos, select the photos, tap Share, tap Options, and turn off Location. "Location Not Included" appears above the Options button, and you share as usual. Two caveats: it only affects that share, so the originals on your phone keep their location, and it is about location, not every other field. For a full clean of iPhone photos, see our iPhone metadata guide.

Mac: hide location, then rename in Finder

In the Photos app, select the photos and choose Image, then Location, then Hide Location (Apple Support). Apple's documented options on the Mac are about location; it does not document a built-in way to remove all camera metadata from a batch, so for that you need ExifTool or a dedicated tool.

Renaming is built in. Select the files in Finder, Control-click one, choose Rename, pick Format from the pop-up menu, choose whether the number goes before or after the name, enter a custom name and the starting number, and click Rename (Apple Support).

ExifTool: clean an entire folder from the command line

ExifTool is free, runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, and is the standard tool for this. To delete all metadata from every image in a folder and its subfolders:

exiftool -all= -r "Path/To/Folder"

Three things from ExifTool's own documentation (ExifTool FAQ, ExifTool docs) will save you trouble:

• It keeps a backup of every file with _original added to the name. Add -overwrite_original only once you trust the result.
• Metadata can include color space information that should stay. The FAQ's safer JPEG command keeps the ICC profile (add -r for subfolders): exiftool -ext jpg -all= --icc_profile:all -tagsfromfile @ -colorspacetags DIR
• Don't strip everything from RAW files; the FAQ warns against it. Clean exported JPEGs instead.

ExifTool can rename files too, including with a running number through its FileSequence tag, but getting a padded Name-001, Name-002 sequence takes some formatting code in the command. For most people it is quicker to rename with Finder or File Explorer afterward.

Browser folder drop: clean, rename and zip in one step

If you would rather not touch a command line, StripShot's bulk metadata remover takes the whole folder:

• Drag the folder onto the drop zone, or click Choose a folder. Images in subfolders are included; anything that isn't a JPEG, PNG or WebP is skipped and counted.
• Check the new name. It starts as the folder's name, so a folder called Beach Trip becomes Beach-Trip-001.jpg, Beach-Trip-002.jpg in shot order. Type something else, or switch to random names.
• Click Strip All, then Download all as ZIP.

It removes EXIF, GPS, XMP, IPTC, C2PA Content Credentials, AI-generator tags and PNG text chunks such as Stable Diffusion prompts, without re-encoding, so the pixels are identical. Everything happens in the browser, including building the ZIP, so the photos are never uploaded. Limits: up to 300 images of 50 MB each per batch, JPEG, PNG and WebP only (videos go through the video remover), and bulk mode is part of Pro at $9 a month. The free plan strips one photo at a time.

Does posting to Instagram or Facebook strip it anyway?

Many guides say Instagram and Facebook strip photo metadata on upload. That is widely reported, but Meta has not published a page that confirms exactly what it keeps, so it is not something to count on, especially for location. What Meta has confirmed is that it reads files: it renamed its "Made with AI" label to "AI info" on July 1, 2024 and applies it "when we detect industry standard AI image indicators or when people disclose" AI content (Meta). Its earlier post on the topic named C2PA and IPTC as those indicators, and also mentioned invisible watermarks, which no metadata tool removes.

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